As a child, I was terribly frightened by the movie the Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t the witch, the trees, or even the monkeys. The idea of a tornado coming and tearing up my house and carrying me away from the comforts of my home and family was really quite traumatizing.
With age and a little therapy, I’ve been mostly able to overcome this fear. But the other night I couldn’t help but remember how my siblings and friends would taunt me about our neighbor’s car – an Oldsmobile Toronado. As I tried to drift off to sleep, the unmistakable sound of a distant tornado warning siren kept me wide awake. Hey, I saw Twister. (more…)
While heavy thunderstorm clouds kept us incognito in the woods, the weather was not so bad that it kept us from enjoying the great outdoors in the Rocky Mountains outside Steamboat Springs. Though the incredible thunder did freak out Jerry.
I hiked along the Continental Divide Trail and deep into the woods through heavy undergrowth fly fishing the North Fork of the Elk River. I’ve never worked so hard for such small fish, beautiful Brook Trout as they were.
We rode down the Burn Ridge trail early one morning for some of the best, most secluded single track mountain biking ever.
We gave our four wheel drive Dodge Ram 2500 a serious workout on a steep, narrow winding forest service road that seemed like a single track.
And we finally made the hobo pies we’ve been waiting so long to enjoy by a campfire.
All this activity – and the intermittent showers, however – did result in a lack of time for R&R in the hammock. Oh well, better luck next time.
Since the first time my knobby tires hit dirt back in the early 90s when I regularly biked Mt. Tam in Marin, I’ve always wanted to hit the trails in Moab, Utah. Those red mountain single tracks, biking to the edge of a thousand foot drop on some mesa . . . all those things I heard about, there they were, at our disposal when we arrived in Moab on July 8. But there was just one problem: it was a record-breaking day weather-wise, a whopping 100-something, in a town that never gets that hot. Only a fool would ride under those conditions.
Arizona’s canyon lands, painted dessert and red rock buttes are beautiful sights to be seen and appreciated. That being said, I am happy to say I can check that area off my list of potential places to plant permanent roots. I’ll never say never, but the heat and local societal attitude that I encountered – yes, first impressions do count in my book – throughout Northern Arizona put it on a back burner for now, quite literally.
Whether it’s the weather change, the incredible drive through Monument Valley, or today’s office view of the canyon rim, or the San Juan River swim, I’m already liking things better as we head back north. Good decision to bypass Four Corners and opt for the Valley of the Gods. I will admit the direct sun may actually be just as hot, but the shade trees are better and there is a consistent awning-tolerable cool breeze off the river.
The heat over the past week in Flagstaff was much drier, but the saying “It’s a dry heat,” means nothing when everything is just so hot, dusty, and well, dry. The dirt here from the Southern Utah canyons, however, is much more like sand – course with the multicolored crumbles of this land’s distant past.
It was wonderful to visit with the Agredanos. It is always a pleasure to share good times with them, and I’m glad to have finally seen Jerome with Raul and the Douglas Mansion Museum at the site where his father was a copper miner. A good time was had, hopefully by all. But it feels good to be back on the road. There’s much catching up to do with pictures, videos, and tales of our recent adventures. Stay tuned… Now that we have seen everyone on our agenda for a while and over a month has passed since we officially started our full-time RV adventure, it’s time to get back to work. Life is hard. Life is good. Enjoy it. Thus is the essence of my live/work dream.
From Kingman to Williams Arizona we followed one of the last remaining stretches of Historic Route 66. Stopped in the tourist trap town of Seligman only to discover the authentic looking 50’s style diner was closed. What the!?!? Oh well, no root beer float. And we didn’t feel like Chinese food so we snacked in the trailer.
Going on our way, we came across this dirt devil blowing along the hot and dusty Arizona countryside…
From our direction we’re traveling in, there’s only one road in, and one road out, to the hottest, most inhabitable place in North America, Death Valley. The music of Pink Floyd is the ultra mellow soundtrack for our crossing at 5:30 am today.
Way back in 1996, the first time we crossed this inferno, the only soundtrack was the wind screaming in my ears as we rode across on bikes getting baked in our leathers. Back then, we gave no thought to what time we crossed. I think we did it at noon. Today, drive across in comfort at dawn in our big ass truck, yet, I’m still terrified. Couldn’t sleep all night thinking about this epic drive. I mean what kind of morons do this in summertime? Us, that’s who. We’re always good for this sort of misadventure.
Gave the ol’ Dodge Ram 2500 a real workout this weekend haulin’ the rig over Carson Pass (8,650) and Monitor Pass (8,314 ft) from Silver Lake near Kit Carson, CA to Twin Lakes near Bridgeport, CA. Check out our new LiveWorkDream Roadtrip Maps page to see some of the crazy hairpin turns and to follow the progress of our route.
The truck had no problem accelerating up the mountains, though it sure would be nice to figure out the right combination of using the Tow Haul switch, Overdrive Off option and the lower gears. While the truck seems to handle our load just fine in drive, using the Tow Haul switch comes in handy on steep steady grades. A few times, though it seemed to abruptly drop down a gear and nearly red-line for a moment. Any tips are greatly appreciated.
The weight of the trailer didn’t seem to be an issue at all. Either the hitch is getting broken in, or I’m getting much better at handling the vehicle as we didn’t experience any of the bouncing around we had the first few days out.
Of course, we were certain to drain our freshwater tank before we broke camp so we weren’t carrying that extra weight. And we had very little waste water in the holding tanks since we are good at conserving and primarily used the campground toilets. After all, we’re used to back country camping where we did all the dishes with a pint of water.
By the time we finished setting up the trailer at Crags Campground on Robinson Creek near Twin Lakes our site neighbor already knew us by name. I couldn’t help but notice the MotoSat dish atop his Sea Breeze RV Coach when we pulled in, and I noticed him watching ours as it locked onto 91 West. I did not, however, expect what happened next…
When I came out of our rig with a Mike’s Hard Lime, ready to do some serious relaxing, this gentleman walked by and said, “If I’m not mistaken, you’re Jim.” Stunned, I paused a moment. “And your wife is René,” he continued, “and I’ve already forgotten your dog’s name.”
Being a marketing guy, you’d think I’d immediately realize the vinyl lettering I put on our rig was doing the trick. But it took me a moment. Long enough for this fellow Datastorm user to tell me what channel I was broadcasting on, how he couldn’t access my Admin page because my network was secured, and how far he bent over when purchasing his $14,000 Datastorm XF2. Perfectly happy with our F2, I really wonder what the added cost gets you besides the nifty blue glow at night… but I digress.
Crags campground was quite, with beautiful views and Mike – who spreads his “Mike Free From SeaBreeze” WiFi signal free and unsecured – made a great neighbor. I just hope we didn’t annoy him too much having fun with the Shapiro’s boy Conner and the dogs. We sure had a great time. I was surprised to hear his generator running numerous times throughout the day, even though he had at least three panels atop his rig. We had been boondocking for the past week and only ran our new Honda EU2000i Portable Generator once while we were parked in the woods at Silver Lake.
I sure like the view from my new office – at least this week. And it sure is nice to take a break from working online to go fishing or for a walk in the woods. Earlier today while desperately trying to catch a large brown trout that was toying with me for hours in the creek coming out of Silver Lake, a kid asked me where I lived. I had to think for a moment. I then explained how I lived in our trailer and was traveling full time with my wife and dog. His answer: “Cool. That must be hard work. eh?”
Yes, hard work indeed. The actual driving is still only a bit nerve-wracking. Setting up and breaking camp has not yet become a chore. And the research, web development, and email communication is still exciting. But all of the above is indeed tiring. At least the view from our office makes up for it.
It is, however, quite surreal to be sitting deep in the woods listening to internet radio while making ice thanks to solar power and Satellite internet service. And I was bit surprised to get online here atop Carson Pass when we couldn’t even get a signal at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. One thing to consider, however, is while the armature of your satellite dish may be pointing directly at a mountainside, the satellite itself is probably about 45 degrees higher in the sky.
Last week we discovered Lake Francis Resort thanks to our hard copy of the Woodalls Directory, after trying so hard to find a place that wasn’t booked up for Father’s Day weekend. Located in the Gold Country Foothills about 2 hours from Sacramento, we had no idea what to expect.
Pulling into the registration area, we saw a kitschy old west style restaurant, saloon, theater area and swimming pool with lawns and chuck wagons. My first thought was “uh oh, we’ve arrived at Wally World.” We drove back up the hill to the campground. What a relief to see that, as far as RVing goes, it was real camping. Only the pull through spots were paved, the rest were gravel and dirt spots, with lots and lots of shade to help stay cool in the hot afternoons (not so good for satellite internet/TV connections). Although the sites are almost a little too close together when the place is crowded, at less busy times the resort layout offers a lot more elbow room. It reminded me a lot of a great place I used to go to with my family as a kid, Camp Edison Shaver Lake, just outside of Fresno CA.
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